democratic threshold, the lesser the probability that they will engage in armed conflict, or,
if they do, the lesser the probability that it will escalate. However, whereas Russett’s index
treats regime type as a continuous variable, the assertion that democracies do not fight each
other relies on an understanding of regime type as a dichotomous variable. A clear-cut
distinction between democratic and authoritarian regimes needs to exist for the theory to
make sense. Democratic regimes, through their interaction, elicit from one another the
normative restraints underlying the theory. Nobody has ever suggested, however, that
“partial democracies” will only elicit a “partial restraint” from each other.
A balance of power perspective does not offer a plausible explanation of the military
conflicts between Peru and Ecuador either. This is particularly true about the 1995
confrontation and its outcome. Given Peru’s overwhelming superiority in terms of
capabilities, and given Ecuador’s lack of any allies that could come to its assistance, a
balance of power perspective would have not anticipated that Ecuador will dare to
challenge Peru’s control of the area under dispute through military means. More
importantly, it would have not anticipated that such a challenge could be successful.
Ecuador achieved success in the only kind of war it could possibly win: a focalized
confrontation in a favorable setting with limited political aims, launched under the
assumption that Peru would rather admit defeat than raise the ante and bear the cost of
victory in an all-out war
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. In other words, Ecuadorian decision makers estimated that the
fervent rhetoric of their Peruvian counterparts would not translate into a commitment to
assert their control of the disputed area with all the means at their disposal. Thus,
assessments of relative power could be meaningless in the absence of a set of conflict
hypotheses that predict how any particular state could be expected to behave under a given
set of circumstances. Such conflict hypotheses would have to include an assessment of the
probable use a state will make of the capabilities at its disposal, given the political aims that
it is expected to pursue.
Given these circumstances, I offer an alternative explanation for some of the recent trends
in the Southern Cone. My argument may be summarized as follows. First, unlike what we
would expect from a balance of power perspective, the type of political regime is indeed
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Mercado Jarrín 1995.
Convention